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A Simple Issue of Humanitarian Needs Made Complicated by Politics: The Futile Debate on the “Humanitarian Corridor”
- globalarakannetwork
- 4 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Khine Wuntha, GAN
Shortread: opinions April 28, 2025
Arakan is burning. Literally.
Bombs are being dropped — indiscriminately. Communities across Arakan are under attack by the State Administration Council (SAC), which carried out 409 air and artillery strikes between April 2 and 22, 2025, despite its bogus ceasefire declaration. These attacks are part of a larger pattern of violence deliberately inflicted upon civilians since November 2023.
On the ground, particularly in border areas, SAC-trained Islamic groups continue to terrorize communities. Non-Muslims — the minority in many border townships — are targeted, as are Muslims attempting to rebuild their lives under the United League of Arakan (ULA). News of renewed militant activity has triggered fear among Hindu communities, haunted by the 2017 massacre of their members by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).
Thousands have fled this dual horror: war and militancy. Since November 2023, many have escaped Arakan altogether, seeking refuge in other parts of Myanmar. Those unable to leave the region have moved into makeshift internal displacement camps. Whether in camps or in relatively untouched villages, they now face severe shortages of basic necessities — food, medicine, water, electricity, and hygiene items are no longer readily accessible.
While the Arakan Army has secured military control over large swathes of the region, peace remains elusive. Without a halt to SAC’s aerial and naval attacks, rebuilding efforts are impossible. What should be straightforward issues — like accessing clean water — have escalated into major health crises, including widespread skin diseases. Food scarcity has led to the threat of malnutrition, with serious long-term consequences. This suffering is not incidental. The SAC has adopted a deliberate policy of blockade, cutting off basic goods and services from reaching Arakan through the rest of Burma.
Yet there is a simple, feasible solution: transporting essential supplies from Bangladesh. Only a river separates the two regions — a gentle, navigable waterway that has connected them for generations. A basic transfer of humanitarian goods across this river could relieve much of the hardship faced by the people of Arakan.
So why hasn’t it happened?
Because politics got in the way.
What should be a straightforward humanitarian lifeline has been tangled in overthinking and political hesitation. Delivering aid into Arakan through a humanitarian corridor from southern Bangladesh — a pathway supported by international organizations and described by Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain as merely “a path for delivering humanitarian aid” — has been transformed into a controversial geopolitical concept.
This is despite the fact that these basic supplies — food, medicine, hygiene kits — are already available and stocked by international humanitarian organizations. The problem is not the absence of aid but the failure to allow its delivery.
This once-simple idea — to support war-affected communities and create conditions conducive to the eventual repatriation of refugees in Bangladesh — has been distorted by political opportunists. Some critics may mean well but lack understanding or are preoccupied with Bangladesh’s internal politics. Others, however, appear driven by far more sinister motives: to see Arakanese communities weakened or erased. Their political agenda is to divide and “cutting” down communities in Arakan.
Despite their vocal claims of defending Muslims in Arakan, some of these actors have long-standing ties with the SAC. Until late last year, so-called “Rohingya” armed groups received training and arms from the SAC and even fought alongside its troops in northwestern Arakan. Their role in complicating and obstructing what should have been a basic humanitarian operation must not be underestimated — even if others mistakenly believe this situation is simply “complicated.”
The humanitarian principle is not complicated. It is simple: Some human beings are suffering. Other human beings have the ability to help. If they possess even a shred of decency, they must help. There is no room here for political posturing aimed at forcing the ULA into a particular position.
The longer humanitarian aid is delayed, the deeper and more irreversible the suffering will become. If we are not witnessing a deliberate attempt to remove a people from their land, then let wisdom and basic humanity prevail. Let us see this “humanitarian corridor” not as a political trap, but as what it is — a simple solution to an urgent problem.